Leica has an almost 100-year history of making many of the world's very finest photographic lenses.

This isn't one of them.

This 135mm f/4.5 for the M bayonet rangefinder cameras has no distortion, very even illumination and superb bokeh, but it isn't very sharp except in the center. It's not a lens for precision nature and landscape shots, but it could be outstanding for people pictures.

This lens is best forgotten if you need super-sharp results, however for portraits wanting soft backgrounds, this lens is great. This one cost me only $59 over eBay.

It has a 15-blade diaphragm for perfectly circular openings at every setting.

This lens works perfectly on every Leica, and this M version works on everything from the M3 of 1954 to today's M7. In fact, the old M3 is probably the best body for this lens, because the M3 has the biggest finder of any M Leica.

The transitional half-frame Leica M8 and M8.2 probably has no finder lines for this lens, although it ought to work fine otherwise, seeing only the equivalent angle of view as a 180mm lens on a real Leica.

History

Leica's first 135mm lens was the f/4.5 Elmar of 1931, made through 1936.

This Hektor lens came out in 1933, and was made through 1960.

The lens shown here is an M lens made in 1956. Earlier versions came in many cosmetic variations, as well as in screw mount.

An f/4 135mm lens came out in 1960, and a telephoto design f/4 135mm came out again in 1965, which was made through 1995.

Straight lines stay ruler straight as tested at both infinity and at 10 feet (3 meters).

This is a benefit of the simple, non-telephoto design.

Falloff

There is no falloff. The corners don't get darker, even wide-open, another benefit of traditional design.

Filters

Standard 39mm filters screw right in.

Nothing rotates except for the focus and aperture rings, so it's easy to use grads and polarizers. Look through the filter, note its position, and screw on the filter paying attention to the position of the lettering around its perimeter.

Focus

Focus is smooth, but more damped (stiffer) than Nikon manual-focus SLR lenses. I prefer the Nikkors.

The triangularly serrated focus ring doesn't give traction as good as the current Leica square-tooth focus and aperture rings.

Lateral Color Fringes

I didn't see any, but it's a pretty soft lens which would tend to hide them.

The center is OK, but at larger apertures the sides turn into blurry messes.

At f/4.5, the center is sharp, but the sides are blurred as if the camera had been rotated. More technically, the saggital and meridional MTF curves diverge.

At f/5.6, the sides remain softer, but improve to being generically soft instead of outright blurred.

Thing are OK all over by f/8. but forget about hand-holding this with slow film.

This lens faked me out: I was expecting it to work great, since other, simpler German lenses have performed quite well, but not this lens.

Because of this I only shot it at f/4.5 and f/5.6, which is where you have to shoot a lens like this if you're going to hand-hold it with film.

I haven't yet tried it at tripod-only apertures of f/8 and smaller, where its performance ought to improve greatly. By f/8 in daylight with ISO 50 film, you'll be wanting a tripod, and I suspect f/11 to f/16 may be the optimum apertures for this lens.

There's a tripod socket on the bottom. This 1956 lens has a 1/4" thread.

This is a light lens, but when you remember that Leica cameras have no real tripod sockets, just threaded inserts attached to the sheet metal of their removable bottom covers, the Leicas can use all the help they can get to keep you from banging the lens accidentally and bending the bottom cover.

Depth of Field Scale

Depth of Field Scale.

The depth of field scale holds a surprise: the f/11 numbers wouldn't fit in the usual spot, so Leica hid them above the scale where they won't appear until you focus as close as about 9 feet.

The lines corresponding to f/11 are always visible, but you'll only see them called out for f/11 as you focus closely enough so that the lines no longer reach the focus scale. The focus scale leaves the field lines as you focus closer than 10 feet.

I wouldn't bother with a digital Leica until they come out with a full-frame body, and even then film is more fun, but that's just me. I'm told digital shooters today need to use a Leica brand 39mm UV/IR filter 13 410 (or a B+W brand 39mm UV/IR filter) to correct for a design flaw in the M8.2's sensor system design. Caution: THe M8 has no finder for 135m lenses, you'll need an external viewer! For the M8, use the goggled Leica 135mm f/2.8.

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